372 



JOUENAL OF HORTIOULTDRK AND COTTAGE GARDENEB. 



( May 19, 1875. 



He tells U8, " Patience I have long since made mine owue and 

 only companion," and there ia no will of hia or letters of 

 admiuiatratiou to hia estate recorded in the indexes at Somerset 

 Houae. 



The prefaces and dedications of hia works afford satisfactory 

 testimony that he was an honest christian man, and this leals 

 me to details of the doings of his namesake — -doings that have 

 wrongly been attributed to the subject of these notes. 



Gervase was a name adopted in each branch of the Mark- 

 ham family, and I have now before me records showing that 

 besides Gervase Markham of Gotham, there were as his contem- 

 poraries Gervase Markham of Ketlesby in Lincolnshire, and 

 Gervase Markham of Dunham in Nottinghamshire. This last- 

 name'd was our author's 

 cousin, and the earliest 

 of whoso turbulent ac- 

 tions of which I have 

 Been a record was hia 

 challenging Lord Darey 

 of the North. This was 

 in 161G. They had 

 hunted together, and 

 Markham struck a ser- 

 vant of his lordship, 

 who threw him down, 

 was upon him and 

 striking him when 

 Lord Darcy took off 

 his man and reproved 

 him, yet Markham 

 chid Lord Darcy, who 

 replied that if he had 

 not taken his man 

 away he would have 

 beaten Jlarkham to 

 rags. Murkham wrote 

 five or sii letters to 

 Lord Darev, subecribed 

 them, but hoping to 

 evade the law did not 

 send them, but dis- 

 persed them unsealed 

 in the fields, and they 

 charged Lord Darcy 

 with lying, concluding 

 with the hint that if 

 Lord Darcy wished to 

 speak with Markham 

 and send hia boy, he 

 would be well used. 

 Lord Darcy sued Mark- 

 ham in the Star Cham- 

 ber, where he was cen- 

 sured, and fined £500. 

 Chief Justice Hobart 

 said the letters were li- 

 bellous, and though no 

 direct challenge there 

 were plain provocations 

 to it, and though the 

 offence was aggravated 

 by the plaintiff being a 

 peer of the realm, yet the sentence arose out of the nature 

 of the offence, not out of the circumstances of the person, for 

 causing death in a duel is murther. The Chief .Justice records 

 the sentence in his "Reports," adding he was resolved to 

 punish all such as were'guilty of " this damnable presumption." 

 " Thia sentence of mine," he concludes, " it pleased the King 

 (James L) much to approve, and it pleased him to say that 

 I did hit his own mind in it. This was the last day in Decem- 

 ber, 161G, when it pleased him to confer with his poor servant 

 of divers things." 



In 1627 an information was laid that arms and horse accoutre- 

 ments were concealed in the house of Gervase Markham, and 

 Secretary Coke issued a warrant to search his house. The arms 

 and accoutrements were found and seized; but Mr. Markham 

 demanded that they should be either restored, or that he might 

 have payment for the same, "considering that he justifieth 

 himself comformable in religion." The Earl of Newcastle 

 applied to the Council in IG'29 that the arms, Ac, should be 

 restored ; and to sustain the application it was certified that 

 Gervase Markham was then bed-ridden, and had from his 



youth been a Protestant. A certificate also waa enclosed from 

 the Rev. Walter Carey, Vicar of Dunham, that GarvaaeJMark- 

 ham had for eleven yeara attended the Church, and had no 

 imputation of papistry. Whether he inclined to the Roman 

 Catholic adhereuta of the Queen's friends maybe doubted; 

 but there ia no doubt that he favoured the high prerogative 

 measures of the King. 



In 1153.5 a conversation took place at Eagle Hall, Lincoln- 

 shire, relative to mustering forces for Charles the lat, and it 

 was casually observed that Gervase Markham, a kinsman of 

 Thomaa Markham, had one of the beat horses shown at the 

 Newark mustering. 

 Sir .Toha Byron, Sheriff of Nottingham, reported In January, 



1635-6, that Gervaae 

 Markham complained 

 that he waa charged 

 exceaeively for stup 

 money ; but the Sheriff 

 thought to the con- 

 trary. He was assessed 

 at £50, in regard he 

 waa a single man, and 

 had in land £800 a- 

 year, and £10,000, re- 

 puted, out at use. He 

 wrote very discour- 

 teously to the Sheriff, 

 and it resulted in the 

 Serjeant-at-Arms ar- 

 resting him. Gervase 

 was so infirm, and all 

 his members so use- 

 less, that he could not 

 be conveyed to Lon- 

 don. It was proved that 

 he had not been out of 

 his chamber for five 

 years, nor out of his 

 bed for two years. Mr. 

 Cary, Vicar of Dunham, 

 again certified to the 

 truth of this statement, 

 and that he had re- 

 ceived the Communion 

 in bed many years. He 

 was on his petition set 

 at liberty in March of 

 the same year. He died 

 in January, 1G36-7, just 

 twelvemonths after hia 

 arrest, and was buried 

 in the same vault with 

 his father in Laneham 

 Church. 



There is a monnment 

 to their memory, with 

 a figure of the father in 

 his magisterial robes, 

 and the son in armour 

 with a love-lock de- 

 scending from hia head 

 and fastened to hia 

 belt. The armour and the love-lock are symbolical, for he 

 was courageous and amatory. He was an intimate friend of 

 the Earl of Shrewsbury, and the gallant and champion of the 

 Countess, in which chivalric capacity he tourneyed, and was 

 seriously wounded ; but he was nearly killed in a duel with 

 Sir John Holies, relative to the killing of one of the Shrews- 

 bury dependants, and probably these woundinga caused the 

 decrepitude which I have noted afflicted him during the con- 

 cluding years of his life. 



During all the years of turbulent and deorepid life I have de- 

 tailed, Gervase Markham the author was actively employed 

 in writing and publishing a series of works on rural affairs, and 

 the mere dates of their appearance are sufficient evidences that 

 he could not be the offender. 



Fig. !iO.— Gervase Mabkhaji. 



CATASETDM MACULATUM. 

 This belongs to a genus of Orchids more remarkable for the 

 characteristic formation of the flowers than for their orna- 

 mental appearance. Nearly all the species have dull purple 



